Meet Me at the Highland™

Gabrielle Wyatt
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Semimonthly

Meet Me at the Highland™ is a podcast and sacred space centering Black women's leadership, imagination, and legacy. Hosted by Gabrielle Wyatt, founder of The Highland Project, it offers intimate, intergenerational conversations with changemakers, artists, and cultural architects reimagining what it means to thrive. It's a rhythm of rest, reflection, and radical dreaming, where we remember who we are, reclaim our joy, and begin again. Season Two, Seeding, is unfolding now, with Highland Leaders like Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Dr. Topeka K. Sam, and Brea Baker. Each episode arrives with a love letter, journaling prompts, and reflections that invite deeper introspection. This is your invitation. To lead. To rest. To imagine forward. To meet us at the Highland. meetmeatthehighland.substack.com

  1. Sep 30 ·  Video

    Lola C. West: What It Costs to Be You

    "Because of Adele and the women in my family, I can stand in the trenches and be as much steadying balance and the wind beneath people's sails as I can. And because of me, I would hope that my granddaughter will stand to do the same." Lola C. West What does it cost to be you? Lola C. West arrives at the Highland with an answer she has lived her whole life, and it is not a number.  In this conversation, Lola calls in her lineage as the daughter of Adele V. West, the only person she was ever afraid of, and explains how a mother whose standards ran that high made her fearless: five careers, every one of them by her own choice. She names the sign she saw at nine in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the vow that set the course of her life. She walks the careers that carried her from an antique store to Nelson Mandela's fundraising plan to Merrill Lynch, where she met the moment: the market is the only place of equity, because the money in the market does not know your color. Lola shares how she came to be led by her gut and her spirit, and offers the line she sounds like a broken record repeating: you have to figure out how much it costs to be you. She names debt as the way this society controls you, warns that for ease and convenience we give up our freedoms, and tells us she never had a number. She wanted to do what she wanted to do and have enough money to pay for it, and she has riches untold because she has peace of mind. Together, Gabrielle and Lola explore wealth as a practice rather than a sum, the Black art and family pictures where Lola says her wealth resides, the business and the granddaughter she is protecting, and what it means to be a legacy architect: not the billions, but all of the choices, the self-study, the accountability, and the uncertainty it took to get there. Seed wealth and legacy across generations. No one is coming to build your legacy for you, and enough is a form of wealth. Connect with Lola C. WestWebsite: westfulleradvisors.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lolacee/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lolacwest Connect with Meet Me at the Highland™ Full episode and companion content: https://meetmeatthehighland.substack.com/p/lola-c-west-what-it-costs-to-be-you?The Legacy Studio: https://meetmeatthehighland.placeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetmeatthehighlandYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MeetMeatTheHighland Meet Me at the Highland™ is listed on Feedspot's Top Black Women Podcasts (https://podcast.feedspot.com/black_women_podcasts/) (00:00) - Welcome to the Highland (02:27) - Honors and Naming Rooms (03:35) - See and Be Seen Lineage (05:20) - Adele Wests Standards (08:44) - Fearless Career Shifts (14:32) - The Sign That Changed Everything (20:02) - Finding Finance and Equity (25:00) - Responsibility Over Debt (28:44) - Trusting Your Gut and Spirit (32:55) - Miracles and Close Calls (37:20) - Gut Instinct Saves Deal (41:33) - Speak It Into Reality (42:22) - Money Talk Begins (43:51) - Know Your True Costs (46:02) - Debt as Social Control (51:13) - Redefining Wealth (54:43) - Legacy Through Culture (57:10) - Breaking the Cycle Now (01:00:18) - Protecting What Matters (01:03:44) - Mad Libs Closing Ritual (01:07:12) - Final Gratitude Farewell

    Lola C. West: What It Costs to Be You

  2. Sep 9 ·  Video

    Brea Baker: What the Land Remembers

    "Because of them, I can demand what I'm owed unapologetically. And because of me, my lineage will reap what we have sown." Brea Baker What does the land remember? Brea Baker arrives at the Highland holding her infant son, with an answer as literal as it is ancestral. Brea Baker is a writer and activist whose book, Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft & The Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, details her family's experiences across the South and makes another case for reparations to include land distribution. She also regularly contributes reported op-eds and personal essays to ELLE and Refinery29 Unbothered, with other bylines in Harper's BAZAAR, The Nation, Coveteur, and more. In this conversation, Brea calls in her lineage of seed keepers, farmers, teachers, and preachers, and places communalism on the altar: there is no such thing as self-made. She traces her calling to storytelling back to the year Trayvon Martin was murdered, reflects on a decade on the front lines, and names the question that reorganized her self-preservation. If she is fighting for a world where Black people get to access joy and safety, is she not included in that equation? Brea shares the story behind Rooted: her great-great-great grandfather Louis Baker, born enslaved and freed in his early thirties, buying land that once ran more than 600 acres and now holds 96. She names the loss without relitigating it (it wasn't our fault), lays out reparations as debt collection, and widens the conversation from money to healing, naming land as a space where Black America could rest, retreat, and process what we have been taught to swallow. Together, Gabrielle and Brea explore generational leisure as an inheritance worth building on purpose, the practices of imagination that introduce Brea to the softest version of herself, and her wish for Black women listening: communalism allows for stepping back, but as you rest, do not absolve yourself of your responsibility to community. Reclaim the literal land. Reclamation is never an individual act, and the future we are waiting to inherit is one we are already practicing. Connect with Brea BakerWebsite: https://www.breabaker.com Rooted: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rooted-brea-baker/1144498069 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freckledwhileblack Threads: https://www.threads.net/@freckledwhileblack TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@freckledwhileblack LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brea-baker-b0090836a Connect with Meet Me at the Highland™ Full episode and companion content: https://meetmeatthehighland.substack.com/p/brea-baker-what-the-land-remembers?The Legacy Studio: https://meetmeatthehighland.placeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetmeatthehighlandYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MeetMeatTheHighland Meet Me at the Highland™ is listed on Feedspot's Top Black Women Podcasts (https://podcast.feedspot.com/black_women_podcasts/) (00:00) - Brea Baker: What the Land Remembers | Meet Me at the Highland™ (01:44) - Welcome to The Highland (03:59) - Who are you the daughter of? (06:04) - The seed on the altar: communalism (08:25) - Radically necessary storytelling (10:21) - From physics to political science (17:32) - A decade on the front lines (24:24) - Am I not included in that equation? (30:40) - The story of Rooted: 600 acres to 96 (37:43) - Telling a family's story with consent (44:26) - Reparations is debt collection (51:08) - What gives Brea hope (56:47) - A practice for imagination (01:02:05) - What the seed grows into (01:04:38) - Because of them, because of me

    Brea Baker: What the Land Remembers

  3. Aug 19 ·  Video

    Dr. Topeka K. Sam: Not Just Free From, But Free To

    "Because of them, I can. And because of me, I will." —Dr. Topeka K. Sam What happens when freedom stops being a moment of release and becomes a practice? Dr. Topeka K. Sam arrives at the Highland with an answer shaped by a decade of moving from the freedom from to the freedom to. Dr. Topeka K. Sam is a trusted consultant and justice reform leader. She is Founder of The Ladies of Hope Ministries (The LOHM) and leads EPIC Financial PBLLC, TKS Ventures LLC, Faces & Voices Inc., and MyFRSH Financial Services, creating therapeutic pathways that address trauma and support justice-impacted individuals. In this conversation, Topeka calls in her lineage as the daughter of the most high God and the daughter of every Black woman who has led, conquered, cried, laughed, loved, lived, and died before her. Gabrielle mirrors back the shift she has witnessed since 2021: that freedom is a practice, not just a moment, and that Topeka has moved from naming wholeness as a North Star to living it as a non-negotiable, from urgency and survival to true thriving. Topeka places grace on the altar as her seed. Grace for herself first, learned in her first real rest at the Highland, because Black women so often extend grace to everyone but themselves. She traces the reflection that changed her direction: realizing she was rich in friends, love, and family, but not building financial wealth or anything that could outlive her. She names the narrative that polices Black women's earning in nonprofit spaces and the internal work of releasing it, forgiving herself, and trusting that she can do good and do well. She also takes us inside The Ladies of Hope Ministries, where women coming home from prison are met with housing, dignity, and an ecosystem of investment rather than a model of fixing. Dena's episode asked what the next generation inherits; Topeka answers with what she builds. She tells the truth about owning her whole story rather than the three and a half years others knew how to applaud, speaks directly to little Topeka, and offers Black women leaders her clearest counsel: move at your pace, trust your gut, and pat yourself on the back. Together, Gabrielle and Topeka explore why freedom without economic infrastructure is incomplete. Topeka shares what she is building now, businesses, financial pathways, and a fund to seed other Black women, so the next woman does not need ten years to learn what she deserves. She leaves us with the teaching that holds her whole arc: life is about going to the freedom to and not the freedom from. If Season Two of Meet Me at the Highland™ is an invitation to seed, then Dr. Topeka K. Sam seeds freedom in the hardest, most overlooked ground—the places where dignity has been denied and possibility has been made to feel far away. She reminds us that freedom is not only the absence of chains. It is the presence of choice, worthiness, and the conditions to flourish. Connect with Dr. Topeka K. SamWebsite: https://drtopekaksam.com The Ladies of Hope Ministries: https://thelohm.org Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/topekaksam The LOHM on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelohm Connect with Meet Me at the Highland™Full episode and companion content: https://meetmeatthehighland.substack.com/p/dr-topeka-k-sam-not-just-free-fromThe Legacy Studio: https://meetmeatthehighland.place Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetmeatthehighland YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MeetMeatTheHighland (00:00) - Black Women Lead (01:48) - Welcome Back to Highland (03:05) - Who Are You Daughter Of (08:18) - Grace and Rest (10:49) - Blooming After Loss (17:03) - Freedom To Not From (23:23) - Legacy Artifacts EPIC (26:17) - Building Dignified Systems (31:16) - Storytelling New Narratives (33:36) - Belonging and Identity (36:15) - Owning Your Whole Story (40:10) - Questions on Belonging (40:52) - Advice to Little Topeka (42:33) - Guidance for Nonprofit Leaders (45:38) - Future Stories Tease (46:16) - Wealth as Freedom (48:07) - Building Social Enterprises (53:53) - Rest and Joy Practices (57:06) - Protecting Peace in Chaos (58:43) - Legacy Closing Reflections

    Dr. Topeka K. Sam: Not Just Free From, But Free To

  4. Jul 29 ·  Video

    Dr. Dena Simmons: The Soil We Cannot See

    “Because of them, I can dream. Because of me, I can make my dreams come true.” —Dr. Dena Simmons What is the emotional soil the next generation will inherit? Dr. Dena Simmons arrives at the Highland with an answer rooted in lineage, liberation, and the courage to stop calling endurance success. Dr. Dena Simmons is an activist, educator, and student of life from the Bronx, New York. She is the founder and executive director of LiberatED, an organization that centers radical love, healing, and justice in education and social and emotional learning to support the mental health of students and educators. In this conversation, Dena calls in the strength of her mother, who came to this country alone at 18 with $25 and created a life for her three daughters. She reflects on her twin sister’s chronic illness, her own health journey, and the years she spent swallowing difficult emotions because being a “good” Black girl meant not causing problems. Those experiences taught her what can happen when children are expected to achieve, endure, and remain strong without anyone asking how they really are. Dena shares how being bullied at Yale and ultimately walking away from the institution forced her to redefine wellness and success. Success could no longer be measured only by accolades, awards, or proximity to prestige. It had to include therapy, family, laughter, emotional honesty, movement, community, and the preservation of her spirit. She names self-preservation as community preservation and explains why the work of caring for ourselves cannot be separated from caring for one another. She also takes us inside the work of LiberatED, where educators and young people are invited to co-create the communities and systems meant to support them. Dena discusses refusing pressure to dilute the organization’s justice-centered language, the difference between neutrality and justice, and why social and emotional learning can become “white supremacy with a hug” when culture, history, identity, and power are removed from the conversation. Together, Gabrielle and Dena explore care as something we must practice rather than perform. They consider what it means to ask people what they need, listen without judgment, and act on what we hear. Dena leaves us with two questions that can reshape the emotional ground beneath our lives: How am I really? What would feel good right now? If Season Two of Meet Me at the Highland™ is an invitation to seed, then Dr. Dena Simmons turns our attention toward the soil we cannot see—the emotional and relational conditions beneath our homes, schools, organizations, and communities. She reminds us that the next generation will inherit more than our ambitions. They will inherit what we normalize, what we make space to feel, and the kind of care we make possible. Connect with Dr. Dena Simmons Website: https://denasimmons.com LiberatED: https://liberatedsel.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denasimmons X: https://x.com/denasimmons LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dena-simmons-9263a918 Connect with Meet Me at the Highland™ Full episode and companion content: https://open.substack.com/pub/meetmeatthehighland/p/dr-dena-simmons-the-soil-we-cannot?r The Legacy Studio: https://meetmeatthehighland.place Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meetmeatthehighland YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MeetMeatTheHighland (00:00) - Black Women Lead (01:54) - Welcome to Highland (03:43) - Daughter Of Lineage (07:29) - Choosing Joy Daily (09:57) - Redefining Wellness (15:28) - Self Preservation Community (21:54) - Shifting Systems Through Youth (24:50) - LiberatED in Practice (30:20) - Courage Lessons Learned (36:35) - Freedom We Cannot Unsee (40:10) - Including Yourself in Care (41:07) - Daily Practices for Wholeness (43:23) - Kindness Joy and Community (47:39) - Wellness Needs Justice Context (50:42) - Neutrality vs Collective Healing (56:14) - Ecosystem of Care in Schools (01:01:04) - Care Under Real World Threats (01:02:23) - Agency in Healing and Culture (01:08:01) - Seeds to Grow Trust Community Love (01:12:11) - Mad Lib and Closing Blessing

    Dr. Dena Simmons: The Soil We Cannot See

  5. Jul 8 ·  Video

    Katara McCarty How to Grow Without Burning the Soil

    What does it take to grow something without burning the soil it grows in? Katara McCarty arrives at the Highland in the second episode of Season 2 with an answer shaped by both her flourishing and her depletion. Katara McCarty is the founder and CEO of Exhale, an award-winning, inclusive well-being app and resource that centers the mental health and well-being of Black women. She also leads Exhale Cares, advancing mental health equity through advocacy, education, and research. Her honors include first place in the NBA Foundation All-Star Pitch and a Webby Award. She is an inaugural Highland Leader and now a coach to many leaders across the Highland. In this conversation, Katara arrives slow and gentle, practicing a pace that does not shove her through the day. She names her lineage: daughter of Betty Waters, who opened her home to a foster baby in 1972, daughter of Mary Waters-Smith, daughter of Nellie Waters, daughter of community and collective care. She places a seed on the altar, a slower, more intentional pace of leadership that does not require depletion to prove impact. She reflects on what the Highland helped her remember about legacy, that it is not only what you leave behind but what you seed forward to flourish seven generations from now. She tells the truth about eighteen years as a pastor and nonprofit leader, holding space for everyone while few held space for her, and about the day in 2016 she landed on her bathroom floor, emptied, asking where to go from here, and the coach who told her to pour back into herself and to grieve. She offers the line that names the whole season: you can grow things, but you do not have to burn the soil. Gabrielle mirrors it back as wholeness, rest integrated with purpose rather than sacrificed to it, and names the difference between care as branding and care as a practice that actually holds us. Katara describes what Exhale really offers, not new care but remembered care, spaces that guide us home to ourselves. She names the vision she will not trade, I see us well, well resourced, well rested. She names what the systems do, deplete and extract, and frames rest and prioritization as refusal. And she closes with the mad lib that holds the arc in two lines: because of them, I can exhale, and because of me, they can exhale. If Season Two of Meet Me at the Highland™ is an invitation to seed, then Katara McCarty tends the question of what the soil requires. Before the planting, the conditions. Before the harvest, the rest. Seed yourself first. Let this episode be a remembering that there is nothing wrong with us, that we are deserving of our own care, and that we can build a different way. Connect with Katara Website: exhale-app.com Exhale Cares: exhalecares.com Instagram: @kataramccarty LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kataramccarty Connect with Meet Me at the Highland™ Full episode and companion content: https://meetmeatthehighland.substack.com/p/katara-mccarty-how-to-grow-without The Legacy Studio: https://meetmeatthehighland.place/ Instagram: @meetmeatthehighland YouTube: https://youtu.be/1B8T9eryyOE (00:00) - Intro (02:23) - Arriving Slow and Gentle (03:56) - Lineage Daughter Of (06:38) - Seeding Slower Leadership (09:35) - Legacy Seven Generations (13:33) - Depletion and Turning Point (16:33) - Bathroom Floor Breakthrough (21:55) - Grow Without Burning (27:25) - Relearning Rest from Grandma (30:51) - Rest Fuels Creativity (34:25) - Care as Practice Now (36:11) - Pandemic Spark for Exhale (39:31) - Building Exhale From Frustration (43:08) - Wellness Spaces And Harm (46:05) - Remembered Care And Mirroring (48:41) - What Is Yours To Carry (54:33) - Discernment And Saying No (01:01:42) - Protecting The Seven Generation Vision (01:03:16) - Breath As Daily Resistance (01:07:32) - Support The Movement (01:13:35) - Mad Libs And Gratitude (01:16:03) - Closing Celebration And Farewell

    Katara McCarty How to Grow Without Burning the Soil

  6. Jun 16 ·  Video

    Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Love, Power, and the Mustard Seed

    What does it mean to plant something for people you may never meet? Season 2 of Meet Me at the Highland™ opens with Brittany Packnett Cunningham, who arrives tracing her lineage and offers the season the faith of a mustard seed. With Gabrielle Wyatt, she explores truth as a daily practice, taking your rightful place, and how to hold love and power in the same hand. Brittany is the founder of Love & Power Works, host of UNDISTRACTED podcast, Chief Strategy Officer of the Children’s Defense Fund, and author of the forthcoming We Are Like Those Who Dream. Full episode and bonus content: meetmeatthehighland.substack.com More on Brittany: brittanypacknett.com, @MsPackyetti This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meetmeatthehighland.substack.com (00:00) - Episode 1. Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Love, Power, and the Mustard Seed (01:36) - Welcome to the Highland (03:23) - Daughter of Prayer (05:32) - Prayer Crew and Community (07:28) - Seeds Roots and Mustard Faith (14:17) - Showing Up in Fullness (17:32) - Taking Your Rightful Place (28:54) - Learning Self Love (38:17) - Truth Love as Practice (39:18) - Truth Over Survival (40:17) - Truth As Love (44:25) - Building The Truth Muscle (48:42) - Love And Power Together (49:23) - From Emojis To King (55:47) - Dreaming Feels Proximate (57:17) - Why This Book Exists (01:01:59) - Humility In The Writing (01:06:09) - Protecting The Next Generation (01:09:35) - Freedom Mad Lib Farewell

    Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Love, Power, and the Mustard Seed

  7. 12/05/2025 ·  Bonus

    A Love Letter to the Future Dr. Gail Parkers

    A quiet note of gratitude honoring the lineage, wisdom, and healing presence Dr. Gail Parker brought to Season One. A reflection on love as inheritance and love as practice.In this Love Letter from the Highland, Gabrielle reflects on the tenderness and truth Dr. Gail Parker brought to Season One. She honors the lineage that shaped her, the wisdom she carries with grace, and the healing she offers through rest, awareness, and remembrance. This letter is a soft moment of gratitude for the ways Dr. Parker teaches us to return to ourselves. It is a recognition of her legacy, her voice, and the love she practices through her work and her presence. A gentle closing tribute to a woman whose life reminds us that love is something we inherit and something we choose every day.To listen to more reflections and conversations from Season One, subscribe to Meet Me at the Highland on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Substack.Share your own reflections and legacy stories with #MeetMeAtTheHighland. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meetmeatthehighland.substack.com

    A Love Letter to the Future Dr. Gail Parkers

  8. 12/03/2025

    Love is a Lineage and a Life Practice with Dr. Gail Parker

    In this conversation, Gabrielle Wyatt and Dr. Gail Parker explore love as a living inheritance and a life practice. They dive into the ways lineage shapes us, how rest and stillness help us return to ourselves, and why awareness is essential for healing and belonging. Dr. Parker reflects on the women who formed her, the lessons carried from her father’s service as a Tuskegee Airman, and the power of breath and restorative yoga to support emotional clarity and nervous system repair. Together they explore what it means to live with intention, to listen to the body, and to dream freely as part of a healing legacy. ⏱ Chapters [00:00] Welcome and intention of the Highland[02:15] “I am the daughter of…” grounding in lineage[04:05] Early lessons and the love that shaped her[07:40] Growing up in Detroit and learning community[12:50] What the body remembers and how rest supports healing[17:22] Rest versus sleep and listening for the body’s signals[22:10] Restorative yoga and the nervous system[27:50] Awareness as a daily life practice[31:00] The breath as a doorway into belonging[35:38] Why dreams matter and how imagination guides healing[40:44] Guided breathing practice to return to center[45:18] Belonging, compassion, and seeing each other clearly[50:09] Legacy, lineage, and the stories we carry[56:20] Final reflections on love as a practice 🔗 Listen and Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Substack Use #MeetMeAtTheHighland to share your reflections. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meetmeatthehighland.substack.com

    Love is a Lineage and a Life Practice with Dr. Gail Parker
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Trailer

About

Meet Me at the Highland™ is a podcast and sacred space centering Black women's leadership, imagination, and legacy. Hosted by Gabrielle Wyatt, founder of The Highland Project, it offers intimate, intergenerational conversations with changemakers, artists, and cultural architects reimagining what it means to thrive. It's a rhythm of rest, reflection, and radical dreaming, where we remember who we are, reclaim our joy, and begin again. Season Two, Seeding, is unfolding now, with Highland Leaders like Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Dr. Topeka K. Sam, and Brea Baker. Each episode arrives with a love letter, journaling prompts, and reflections that invite deeper introspection. This is your invitation. To lead. To rest. To imagine forward. To meet us at the Highland. meetmeatthehighland.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Gabrielle Wyatt
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Gabrielle Wyatt
  • Show Website
    Meet Me at the Highland™

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